Bakers can refuse gay slogans

UNITED KINGDOM

Fionola Meredith

The Irish Times (Ireland)

Britain’s highest court has correctly ruled that a person cannot be compelled to say something against his or her religion, said Fionola Meredith. The Belfast bakery Ashers, which is owned by evangelical Christians, had refused to bake a cake for LGBT activist Gareth Lee decorated with the slogan “Support gay marriage.” Ashers didn’t refuse service to Lee because he is gay—that would have been a clear act of discrimination. The bakers would have refused to make that same cake for a straight person. “Their objection,” said Lady Hale, president of the Supreme Court, “was to the message on the cake, not to the personal characteristics of Mr. Lee.” And that’s why it’s perfectly OK for them to refuse his request. Don’t get me wrong: I support gay marriage. But think of the precedent had the court ruled otherwise. Any business could be forced to promote “political or religious ideas with which they profoundly disagree.” A feminist-owned bakery could be required to make cakes that declared abortion murder, or a Muslim printer compelled to silk-screen T-shirts with cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. Discrimination against people is banned, but discrimination against ideas is allowed, even vital, in a free society. “We have the liberty to refuse to have the beliefs of others imposed upon us by an authoritarian arm of the state.”